Sound of Music

I am a big Julie Andrews fan. When I was a kid I loved musicals and Julie Andrews, Shirley Jones, and Barbara Streisand are the queens of musicals. They were kind of before my time as far as when their movies came out, but I had VHS tapes (I realize some here might need to Google this) and that was good enough.

The movie that put Julie Andrews on the map was the Sound of Music. The Sound of Music is the story of the Von Trapp family and how they escaped Austria right after the Nazis had taken over the country.

The story of the Von Trapp family is real in that there was a Von Trapp family, but the movie took a lot of liberties. I think this is the reason why most locals in Austria have never seen the movie, despite how popular the movie was in the USA. That said it hasn’t stopped the locals from cashing in on the movie as there are several Sound of Music tours in Salzburg.

I am not really into organized tours, I like to, when possible, experience things on my own. I feel the experience is more personal that way, but sometimes a local guide can point out things only a local will know.

Since I knew most locals didn’t really care about the Sound of Music, I figured a guide would not help me. So I knew I would probably be better off guiding myself.

To do that we got an all day bus pass. The pass allowed me to travel for a 24 period throughout Salzburg. Most places in Salzburg are in walking distance, but there are some places on the outskirts of the city where buses are more convenient. You can take a cab in Salzburg, but they are kind of expensive.

Being the birthplace of Mozart, Salzburg seems to have music in the water, at any rate there is a lot of water in Salzburg.

Sound of Music Pavilion

Using my bus ticket, a Rick Steeves audio guide, and a little bit of internet searching we were able to find many interesting places in Salzburg. The only two places we paid to visit was the Hellbrunn Palace and dinner at Agustiner Brau, oh and we paid for chocolate at the souvenir store.